Land Forces
Eager Lion 2026: CENTCOM’s exercise with Jordan is held in the United States for the first time
The 12th Eager Lion, a command post and cyber defence exercise with the Jordan Armed Forces, took place at Fort Carson, Colorado, instead of Jordan. About 200 personnel took part.
The Colorado Army National Guard hosted Eager Lion 2026 at the 168th Regional Training Institute, Fort Carson, from 15 to 25 September, the first time the exercise has been staged on United States soil. The U.S. Army and the National Guard Bureau published the account on 21 October through the DVIDS network.
Eager Lion is led by U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) with the Jordan Armed Forces and had until now been held exclusively in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, where it was described as CENTCOM’s largest and most complex exercise in the Levant. The 2026 edition was the 12th and was run as a command post and cyber defence exercise.
Who took part
Roughly 200 military personnel were involved: about 165 U.S. service members and 40 Jordanian personnel. National Guard troops from Colorado, Illinois, Kansas and Utah worked alongside Jordanian officers, handling planning, logistics, medical and legal questions in a simulated operational headquarters.
According to the U.S. account, the scenarios covered counterterrorism, air defence, maritime security, cyber defence and disaster response. The stated purpose of the series is to build interoperability and functional capacity, and to support civil authorities, including the protection of critical national infrastructure, operations in a chemically contaminated environment and integrated logistics.
The State Partnership Program link
The choice of Colorado reflects a long-standing tie. The National Guard State Partnership Program, established in 1993, pairs individual state Guards with foreign militaries, and Colorado and Jordan have been partners since 2004. Brig. Gen. William DiProfio, director of Joint Staff for the Colorado National Guard, said the two sides had shared practices in aviation, field artillery, cyber defence, joint operations and tactical manoeuvre through “hundreds of exchanges”.
Brig. Gen. Mahmud Al Farajat, the Jordanian defence, military and naval attaché in Washington, called Eager Lion “a cornerstone and, indeed, a jewel” of military cooperation with the United States. He said it helps strengthen deterrence, rapid response and crisis management, and supports the transformation of the Jordan Armed Forces into a more agile and integrated force.
Why it matters
Eager Lion has traditionally been one of the main visible signs of U.S.-Jordanian military ties in the Middle East. Moving the 2026 edition to Colorado and scaling it down to a headquarters-level exercise marks a change of format. The published account does not say whether the exercise will return to Jordan in the next biennial cycle, nor does it give a reason for the relocation, so neither is stated here.
Source: DVIDS, Colorado National Guard
